1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reproducing method and an image reproducing apparatus for reproducing images that are recorded on a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital cameras that are widespread in use electronically process information on images taken and store the image information as image files in a recording medium such as a memory card, and the like. In addition, most of such digital cameras can display images with a built-in display (such as a liquid crystal display panel) or an external display connected to a video output terminal (such as a television set). By shifting recorded images forward/backward frame by frame in one operation, a user can search for and view a desired image file while checking images. There is also a digital camera with a jump function that enables display of an image that is N frames ahead or behind, rather than frame-by-frame display in one operation. With such a jump function, if a user is apparently aware that a desired image file is not located adjacent to a currently displayed image, the user can search for and view the desired image file with a fewer number of operations.
Recently, recording media have a pronounced tendency to shift to high capacity. As the tendency proceeds, the number of frames to be recorded in one recording medium is voluminously increasing. The voluminous increase in the number of frames impels the user to execute an operation of shifting frames forward/backward so many times so as to search for and view a desired image file, which causes cumbersome operations for the user.
Digital cameras with such a jump function are discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-177456 and No. 2004-153832 (corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2004/0085457 A1). More specifically, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-177456 discusses image shifting in which a user specified a number of frames to be jumped and the recorded images are shifted according to the number of frames to be jumped specified by the user. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-153832 discusses a reproduction configuration in which a displayed image jumps to the first image or an initial screen in response to a user pressing an UP button and jumps to the last image or the initial screen in response to a user pressing a DOWN button.
However, in the conventional digital camera with a jump function, fixing the number of frames to be jumped as with the jump function discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-177456, is a problem. This is because the number of frames to be jumped is sometimes too large or too small relative to the total number of recorded frames, which makes it inconvenient to search for a desired image.
In addition, with the jump function discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-153832 in which a displayed image simply jumps to the first or last image, a user more often ends up viewing through frame-by-frame advance if the number of images increases, which makes the operation cumbersome.
Furthermore, a user does not look at images closely in many cases when the user searches for a desired image from a large number of image files. Rather, as the user makes a search relying on a rough image, some decrease in image information is often permissible.